


A Brief Crash Course on Corporate Espionage, and Other Trivialities

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Corporate, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Corporate Espionage, Detective Jane, Evil Corporations, F/F, Intrigue, Lawyer Terezi, Novelist Rose, POV Third Person, Private Investigators, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane Crocker -- private investigator and self-styled detective extraordinaire -- lands a strange case after a job interview far outside the usual. She can't help but admit that taking this particular job, for the popular and successful novelist Rose Lalonde, would be the opportunity of a lifetime for an aspiring sleuth. It simply remains a matter of question whether the goals of her enigmatic employer are of a sort she has the resolve to see through to their ultimate ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letmetellyousomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyousomething/gifts).



> _"Mystery. The skeptical detective Jane investigates Rose's claim that aliens exist. Is she the Rose who speaks with horror terrors, the Rose who suspects Betty Crocker or a Rose in a world after the game who remembers the trolls? (Or a Rose who's substance abusing, you get the idea)"_
> 
> I saw this part of the Jane/Rose prompt and I knew that I wanted to write dramatic intrigue starring lesbians. I feel like I've definitely delivered on the counts of corporate espionage and private investigation so the intrigue is enthusiastically fulfilled, although I've perhaps delivered less so on the lesbians than I might have liked. Hopefully the story is still fun!

-

The hall is blindingly white when Jane walks in, the walls all draped with yards and yards of snowy fabric, as if Jane has entered into an enormous circus tent, or perhaps a snow palace. Overhead a heavy crystal chandelier hangs from the high ceiling, sparkling icily and refracting rainbow light down on the assembled guests. Men and women in fine suits and elegant evening gowns wander across the floor, a mixed menagerie of penguins and peacocks, in their combination of typical black tie and glorious jewel tones.

Jane swears she spots George Clooney, chatting with some young ingenue. Off by the refreshments table, she spies Ben Affleck's charming face. She still can't believe that the invitation she was sent, ludicrously embossed on linen paper, was real. She can't believe she's been admitted into this high-class affair.

But she has work to be doing.

Jane picks her way across the floor, the low heels of her dress shoes tapping softly against the marble. She blends in adequately, at the least. The cut of her jacket isn't nearly as trim as George Clooney's, but the padding in the shoulders makes her feel solid, makes her feel broad in that strong, gentlemanly way. She always has favored the British style, like a callback to the detectives out of books that she best admired as a child.

She watches the faces of the guests she passes, nodding smartly in acknowledgment to one pretty face here, one inquiring look there. Betty White materializes out of nowhere just long enough to compliment her on what a handsome figure she makes and for a moment Jane is completely lost, disarmed by the force of personality wedged into a figure so diminutive she comes to Jane's shoulder at best. It really is Betty White, the same woman she watched on television with her poppop when he was alive. She takes a moment to catch her breath.

Betty White has called her a handsome lad, has patted her shoulder like she was a grandson.

She's not prepared at all when she's dropped in on, though she does marvel at how thoroughly she's been snuck up on. It should have been impossible to miss a figure garbed in a monstrosity as eye-searing as the teal and orange number her accoster is sporting, spangled as it is with bright splashes of gold that do somehow compliment the bronze to the woman's complexion, but somehow Jane has managed it with her little moment of the vapors. Jane reprimands herself internally for the lack of vigilance.

"What was that?" she asks, offering an embarrassed little smile.

"I said clear the way," the other woman laughs, placing her hand on Jane's forearm and steering her from the center of the floor. "I can see the lost lamb on you, all dazed around the eyes, and that's saying something. Maybe you shouldn't go jumping right into the deep end. It's a shark tank in there."

Her laugh is high and a whole handful of decibels too loud. She obviously knows it, but she's completely unapologetic, barking out with her bright cackle and herding Jane like a sheepdog. She's tinier even than Betty White, but she grins like a wolf so she's showing too many teeth, and it doesn't even cross Jane's mind to argue with her. The floor is clearer where she's led, to the side of the hall nearest the refreshments table.

"I don't very well fancy standing away from the action," Jane says, once she's at last begun to catch her footing. "I'd much rather push up my sleeves and wade right in."

"An admirable stance!" her company declares. "Especially for a first timer. This is your first celebrity party, isn't it?"

Jane shrugs, helplessly, not seeing a point in pretending otherwise. It's a bit disheartening, to hear she has "interloper" stamped so clearly across her face, but perhaps that simply can't be helped. "It is."

You'll catch the hang of it," the other woman assures her.

Jane has her doubts. She remembers the letter she'd gotten in the mail, on lovely scalloped stationary, elegant and regal and with just a hint of what had to be perfume, written out by hand in a curling, intricate script. She'd never gotten a job by post before – which wasn't saying much, she's only had a handful of jobs since opening her own private agency – and she doubts she will again. This will be the last investigation she does at a high-society party, and without the excuse of work, it's unlikely she'll catch an invitation again.

"It can't be so hard," is what Jane says, doing her best to agree. "After all, celebrities are just people, when you look at it."

"Precisely!" her company concurs, patting her cheerfully on the arm. "Terezi Pyrope, by the way. The pleasure is all mine."

"Oh, where are my manners," Jane says, her free hand coming to her lips. She pulls it away, thrusting it out in front of her instead, posed vertically for a shake. "It's... Jay. Jay Baynes. Likewise."

She stumbles a little, grasping for a cover she hasn't bothered to firmly establish. Being Jane Crocker is out of the question. She doubts she wears the mantle of her fictional investigator much better, though Terezi doesn't bat an eye at her introduction. Maybe she was smoother than she realized.

Terezi grasps her hand, giving a firmer shake than Jane might have expected from such a small woman. She's all angles and lines, her elbows sticking out sharply even as she pumps Jane's entire arm. Her crocodile grin only notches wider. When Terezi lets go of her, she immediately reaches down the front of her dress, plucking out a single business card to press into Jane's hand. Jane chooses not to consider precisely where the woman was hiding it; she hardly has cleavage enough to store anything.

"If you ever need a good lawyer," Terezi says, winking knowingly. "I'm the best, trust me. I'm just who you want to call. The number's on the back."

Jane nods, a bit stiffly, not sure how to respond when a social chat so quickly transforms into more of a business overture. She hopes she'll never find need for a lawyer's services, though she doesn't yet know what area of law Terezi even happens to practice.

"I only work for the best, too," Terezi adds. "Novelists, actors, movie directors, you know the type. They just can't help hanging themselves up by their own finery. I shudder to think what they would do without me!"

"You do seem more than capable," Jane temporizes.

"It's a talent," Terezi says. "I like to keep the pretty people on their toes. They always thank me for it, when they see that justice has been done. I'd try the punch, if I were you. You'll be thanking me too."

"What was that?" Jane asks, disoriented by the sudden change in topic.

"The punch," Terezi repeats, pointing over Jane's shoulder.

Jane has to turn, scanning past where Terezi was pointing in order the pick out a large crystal bowl at the center of the refreshments table, filled amply with clear red liquid. "Is it especially good?"

"It could be better," Terezi says. "But its cherry fizz beats out the sour grape crisp of the champagne, and I wouldn't go near the bar, if I were you. Take it from a woman in the know. It helps to have a prop."

Terezi's smile is knowing then, like she's imparting some valuable trade secret. Jane can see the point of it, though, can identify the comfort in having an object to occupy her hands and waste her attention on if conversation lulls or if no one pays attention to her. Terezi is sharp and clever, in the way she comports herself and in the clean angles of her face, with defined high cheekbones and precisely-clipped short hair. She's lovely like a weapon, more striking than conventionally pretty. Jane decides that she likes her, pushiness aside.

"Thank you for the tip," she says.

"My pleasure," Terezi returns. "Have a good evening, Jay. If you'll excuse me, I have to drum up some business."

Jane nods, and turns to follow through on the punch advice. Though she wasn't thirsty before, now that Terezi mentions it she thinks she could use a little something to whet her whistle. As she reaches for the ladle, a bump from behind jostles her, and she splashes punch onto the arm of a man staring dispassionately across the sandwich spread.

"Didn't mean to knock you!" Terezi calls back, though she's already several paces away by the time she issues her apology. "As they say, justice is blind!"

She doesn't sound very sorry, as she taps the red-rimmed cat-eye glasses perched on her nose, and abandons Jane to her embarrassed fate.

"I'm so sorry," Jane mutters, reaching for a stack of napkins to dab at the man's soaked sleeve.

"It's no matter," he tells her, though he keeps his arm outstretched, politely allowing her to administer to him.

"Of course it is," Jane insists. "I wouldn't want to ruin your jacket. There is that old adage that the clothes make the man."

She looks up from her flustered patting, only then attempting to take in the figure she'd sloshed punch on. He's tall, taller than her, broad-shouldered but incredibly bony, his wrist surprisingly narrow under her helpful fingers. In his trim black suit, completed by a black dress shirt and black silk tie, he reminds her of nothing so much as a funeral director. His face is a smooth, ebony mask, thin mouth pressed all the thinner with distaste.

He might have been handsome, if he wasn't so intimidating. As it is, he seems to be looking down his knifeblade-narrow nose at Jane, and she quails a little under the unflinching gaze of dark eyes shadowed under smoothly arching brows.

"I do agree," he offers, deep voice almost completely without inflection. "But that's hardly something for you to worry over. A simple dry cleaning should solve the problem, which isn't more than I intended to follow through on in the first place, following this tedious event."

Jane cringes a little, but squares her shoulders, unwilling to be cowed by the condescension of a stranger, even one she might have spilled punch on. If he isn't troubled by the accident, then neither will she be.

"That does seem for the best," she says, putting on a bright face. "Though I do apologize."

The man only shrugs, shaking his arm briefly once she's let go of it. He selects a sad little watercress sandwich from the table, and gives her the slimmest of polite nods. "It is appreciated. If unnecessary."

Jane can't help but frown as he walks away, but she keeps her disapproving words to herself. Left at loose ends, she reaches for the ladle again, managing this time to fill a glass without further mishap. As she turns away from the table, long, bone-white fingers reach past her shoulder to pluck the glass from her hands. She's too surprised to keep her hold on it.

"Is this for little old me? Why, you just shouldn't have. Don't mind if I do."

"Excuse me," Jane begins, turning on her heel to confront whoever has confused her for catering staff. The rest of her words die on her tongue.

She's met with gold-rimmed aviator shades, and the smallest, smarmiest self-satisfied smirk. This man needs no introduction. Dave Strider, madcap genius director and absolute media darling. He's an even skinnier beanpole than the dour man who preceded him, but he carries it better, lanky and relaxed as he sips from the glass Jane has just gone out of her way to fill.

"You're excused," he says, resembling in that moment nothing so much as a five-year-old. "Although I'd beg you not to run off, the party's just getting started and I can't bear to be the life of it all on my own. That shit's hells of taxing, might as well file me right now, at least if you do maybe I'll get a return on my ennui. What do you reckon the payoff on existential boredom is? I could do with a few grams of pensive solitude, but if it's just another shot of enervation, don't even bother putting the check in the mail."

Jane only stares at him, mouth sagged slightly open in dull wonderment.

"I mean, I don't know if you're worth partying down with," Dave continues, completely ignoring her stunned silence as if it's not awkward at all. "But I know everyone else in this party, give or take, so fill me in. Who are you, what's your name, what's your story?"

Jane can't help it; she laughs. "Jay Baynes," she says, keeping up her existing ruse. "It's more of a dimestore novel, but I don't mind sharing it."

He grins at her, easily charmed by the attempt at a joke. She can hardly believe this is the man she's come to investigate, with his cheerful white teeth in an almost whiter face, pale like the ghost of all of Hollywood's dreams. There's something unearthly about him, and she isn't sure yet if it feels like he isn't real, or if it's just that he feels larger than life, another figure she knows too-intimately from television and is not prepared to face in the thick of her earthly reality.

"Pleasure to meet you, Jay," Dave says, and he's the one to stick out his hand. "Dave Strider, coming soon to DVD box set, though you tell me if I mean my story or my movies. Either way, there's a great director's cut, and a few bonus behind-the-scenes snippets, if you know how to dig them up."

Jane presses her palm to his, shaking firmly just like her father taught her. She hopes he would be proud, if he saw her now, brushing shoulders with the cultural elite. For a moment her heart aches, that she'll never be able to hear it from him again.

No matter.

"I'm not really dressed for a dig," Jane says. "No one told me I'd be getting my hands dirty here, I feel terribly uninformed."

She trips on her banter, and it isn't really a funny joke. Dave continues smiling anyway. It's that same little upward curl of lips he wears in every interview, the one that's so perfectly patented that it might as well be a non-expression for all it ever reveals of his inward thoughts. She's not a huge fan, but she's seen him on TV a time or two. It's getting her thoughts all in a jumble; she can't remember what she's meant to ask him.

He sips at his punch, and his lips come away stained, vibrant red against his parchment-pale face, so that she wonders that he doesn't look like a sickly thing. He's fair as snow, but there's still a glow to him, a vibrancy. "Leave all the dirtying of hands to me," he says, gesturing vaguely with the glass. "The tabloids heap so much manure on me already, it's not like I'm ever without a shovel. Do you want one scoop or two, or hell, let's just dish it out by the barrel-load, except no one bothers to tell you you're dealing with shit until you're up to your asscheeks in ripe, steaming refuse. At that point, you might as well just roll with it, or roll in it, it's the same damn thing when you've already got the egg on your face."

He's just as nonsensical in person as in every interview Jane has ever bothered to be privy to.

"I'll be sure to do that," she says, crisply. "Though perhaps afterward you might ask someone to hose you down."

"Not a problem," Dave says dismissively. "I've got the best lawyer in town, she can put a spin on anything without batting an eye. Bet she'd love to blast me with a fire hose, actually. Don't let her hear you saying that, she'll take you at your literal word and then here's me, rocking the drowned rat look."

"I hope you don't let her clean up all of your messes," Jane says.

"Only the really messy ones," Dave assures. "Those are the ones she likes best."

"There aren't any terrible snafus for her to mop up at present, are there?" Jane asks.

She finds herself holding her breath, wondering if she's been too direct. It's a brilliant miracle that Dave has gotten on the subject of his lawyer; the certainty that she's already met the woman braces Jane, and it's the perfect lead-in for what she really wants to know.

"Nah, I tried to sic her on some IP shenanigans a while back but she's only got so many guns in that arsenal," Dave says. "You know how it is, one bloodthirsty law-hound can only sink her claws so deep. She's really more of a defamation miracle-worker at heart, god bless her talent for keeping names and their faces squeaky clean. Or at least spit and polished."

"IP shenanigans?" Jane echoes. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, intellectual property," Dave says, like it's nothing. Like she must have just misunderstood the lingo, which she'd thank him to know she's perfectly abreast of, if it wouldn't be counterproductive to her goals. "I was trying to get my grimy hands on the rights to a certain book series' movie adaptation, but alas, the prize slipped through even Rez's clever fingers. It's cool. You win some, you lose some, you have some snatched from you by smug witches who relish in your defeat."

Even through his metaphor and double-speak, Jane can deduce the shining kernel of truth awaiting her. It's hardly the type of investigation she meant to be doing, when she started up her own detective agency. But sleuthing out whether one rich, famous person is trying to trick another isn't the worst use for her skills.

"It sounds like you at least have a positive outlook on the matter, hoo hoo!" she laughs.

"Damn right," Dave says. "I've got hells of polarity, all pouring my magnetism out way on one end of the scale. My positivity is its own gravitational field."

Jane shakes her head slightly, not knowing what else to do with him. From the other end of the room, the first opening bars of an unfamiliar song chime out, the brief moment of discordance with the initial notes assuring Jane that musicians are playing live. Dave's head tilts up, catching the sound like a hound might catch a scent, his entire body swiveling toward the temporary stage raised across the hall.

"'Fraid duty calls," he says. "Just the cross I've got to bear, being the life of the party and, you know, the one throwing the shindig in the first place. Catch you later, Jay."

"Ah, yes, perhaps another time," Jane offers in response. Before she can add anything else, he's loping off, weaving agilely between the other bodies lingering in loose knots around the room.

The music builds to a lively wash of sound, recognizable after a minute as an invitation to a fast-paced Viennese waltz. Across the hall, the party-goers trickle toward the sides of the room, save for the few brave souls willing to jump right into the first dance. It's classier than Jane was expecting, and she wonders if this is Dave's hand showing in the festivities. An interlude of proper ballroom dancing seems the exact sort of thing he'd disclaim as being the height of irony.

Jane turns, determined to pour a second glass of punch and to keep it for herself this time, only to swing around to face yet another stranger. Black-painted lips smile at her coyly from a pale, pretty face, little crinkles forming around pale blue eyes artfully accented with violet. The woman holds out her hand, palm-down, an unsubtle prompting for Jane to make the invitation.

"While I imagine this was never meant to be a Sadie Hawkins engagement, I'm all too happy to fly in the face of convention," she says, her voice smooth and lower in register than Jane initially expected, from the pixie-like cleverness of her looks. "Would you care to have this dance?"

Jane hasn't danced since she was small, barely a teenager, not in this sort of formal, regimented setting. And she'd always done the woman's part, when she was a girl. But she knows how to lead – her father had been very supportive in that, a firm believer that there was value in knowing how to lead as well as follow whether it be on a dance floor or on life's stage – and she's not one to back down from something that looks worth doing.

"I'd be happy to," she says, putting out her own hand to catch up the stranger's fingers. She realizes only then that the woman is wearing evening gloves, so thin and sheer the fabric almost blends in with the milky-pale of her skin. It's surprisingly pretentious, and Jane wonders if this woman is following in Dave Strider's footsteps for absurdist irony.

She refrains from commenting on the wardrobe choice, admitting that the gloves are fitting with an off-the-shoulder gown of the sort her companion is wearing, its vibrant lavender complimenting her mist-pale eyes. As she leads her partner onto the floor, Jane can't help but notice the lightness to the other woman's feet, the way she nearly glides across the marble. She has undeniable poise; she's doubtlessly a joy to dance with.

The music comes quick in Jane's ears, a familiar three-four step that gets under her skin until she swears her heartbeat is altering to match. A hand settles against her shoulder, in counterpoint to the one she clasps neatly in her own, and she slides her free palm up to cup under the other woman's shoulder blade against the bare skin of her back. Jane hadn't realized how low-cut the back of that dress was, not until she's touching a distinct absence of fabric. They fall into step with the music together, feet sliding smoothly quick-quick-slow, quick-quick-slow, and for a happy moment, the motions come as familiar as breathing.

"Rose Lalonde," her partner says, like it's a greeting and not an introduction. "I'm glad you received my invitation with no trouble."

When Jane falters in the steps, Rose keeps them going, her hand on Jane's shoulder pushing her back into place. She's still smiling gently, though the quirk of her mouth suddenly looks sly rather than polite, and Jane remembers that she's seen Rose's face on the television before, too.

She knew that she was taking a job from a famous author, that being a large part of her motivation to accept as strange an investigation as the one laid out for her perusal in flowing, conspiratorial script. What she didn't realize was that Rose would be waiting for her at the party.

She wonders if her benefactress has witnessed any of her snafus of the evening: her fumbling the punch, her stumbling in conversing with the famous movie director she'd been spying on.

"When you have a moment," Rose says, continuing to lead from the woman's position. "I'd be absolutely delighted to speak with you in private. We need to catch up on so many things."

-

The long hall the event is held in is only one of many rooms in an expansive villa. Once Jane makes her exit, Rose's gloved palm tucked smartly against the inside crook of her elbow, the rest of the house opens up invitingly before them. Rose doesn't poke around, directing Jane without hesitation down one long hallway and then the next, before ducking into the room beyond a slightly-ajar door.

Inside is a handsome study, wallpapered in deep midnight blue and filled with bookshelves, though one skeptical look has Jane certain that none of the books on them are real. They aren't even quite the right shape for books, the covers slotting together at subtly crooked angles. Rose seats herself against the edge of a heavy, blocky desk at the far side of the room, her rear pressed soundly to the surface. The motion pushes the skirt of he dress up, and she drops her hands to rest against the insides of her knees. Suddenly, she's far less ladylike than the person Jane met hardly minutes before, back in the ballroom.

Jane still feels immensely out of her depth.

"To business," Rose says, decisive and eager. "Tell me precisely what he said."

"He said a lot of things," Jane points out. "I couldn't begin to recall them all from memory."

"Skip to the important parts then," Rose urges. "He's still after my books, isn't he, the little sneak."

"He said he isn't," Jane says. "Or, he said he was, but it didn't work out. He had his lawyer trying to obtain the rights to make your books into a movie, but she couldn't get them."

"Of course she couldn't," Rose says, with relish. "It does pay to have a double agent."

"Pardon?" Jane asks. It's awkward standing in the middle of the empty study, uncertain whether she should move even closer to Rose, to preserve some air of secrecy, or whether she should politely keep her distance. She keeps her feet spread, stance wide and grounding, avoiding looking at the fine carpet she's dirtying up.

Rose pushes herself all the way onto the desk, hooking one toe behind the heel of her opposite foot. First one lilac heel drops to the floor, then the other. She sighs, stretching her legs, and Jane watches her toes wiggle in obvious contentment.

"God, I'm glad to get out of that party," Rose says. "Terezi Pyrope. I wouldn't allow myself to have anything save the best legal representation, and she happens to be more than the littlest bit mercenary. If she represents both Dave and myself, only rarely does there arise a conflict in interest. There might have been, this time, but he needn't know."

Jane is silent a moment, digesting that bit of information. "You had your lawyer lie to him, to keep Dave Strider from getting the rights to your books."

"Precisely!" Rose says cheerfully. "All's fair in love and legalese, and it's not as if Dave has never fought dirty. I'm not entirely opposed to a movie adaptation down the road, but I'd prefer to keep creative control more firmly in hand. Dave does tend to get far too fanciful with his execution, while I prefer a more restrained hand."

Jane nods, slowly. Goodness, but she wishes so much of the evening hadn't been polite social niceties, the likes of which she hasn't had to deal with in the better part of a decade. Her floundering must be doing little to endear her to her employer.

"Have you had a good time at the party?" Rose asks, seemingly changing tact.

"It's been interesting," Jane temporizes.

"These parties always are," Rose agrees. "Why, you can become just so _interested_ in the lovely décor or the captivating ambiance, and then it feels as if time slows to a crawl just to ensure you might take it all in. These events draw out impossibly, whenever that happens."

Jane can't help but laugh, a hiccup-chuckle that isn't at all in keeping with the way she's wanted to present herself that night. Rose has pulled her legs up, heels pressed together and calves drawn in toward her body in a playful, impish pose. She looks so young that way, fingers curled around her ankles and reputation seemingly forgotten. Jane wonders how old she really is, to have published an entire wildly-successful fantasy book series. She can't remember what Rose's wikipedia page has to say on the matter.

"You can say it's boring," Rose adds. "I won't be offended. It's not my party, anyway."

"It hasn't been that," Jane says. "I've hardly had two consecutive moments together to be bored in. Someone was always popping up to give me a whole handful of pennies' worth of their thoughts."

"So is the life of bored modern aristocrats," Rose drawls, with obvious amusement. "Who managed to catch your attention? You should be glad Keanu Reeves wasn't invited this year, he's an absolute bore when he gets to talking."

"I met your lawyer," Jane says. "Terezi Pyrope."

"She's a sharp one, isn't she?" Rose asks. "I wouldn't allow party invitations to go out without her name on the guest list. Even if I am not the one in charge of the festivities."

"I liked her," Jane admits, grinning a little, her teeth peeking out over the curve of her lower lip. "Even if she bumped me into some grumpy Gus who I wouldn't have spilled punch on, if I'd had my druthers. But I doubt anyone really wants to spill drink on a stranger!"

Rose smiles back, the laugh lines around her eyes crinkling up again. "Some strangers might deserve it."

"This one hadn't done anything to me to earn my ire," Jane says. "I do feel a bit bad over it."

"I'm sure he'll recover," Rose says. "It takes far more than a little spill to get under Droog's skin."

"Hmm?" Jane murmurs, even as her eyes narrow slightly. She's been giving Rose the benefit of the doubt, but the course of the conversation only seems to be proving her suspicions. Rose must have been watching her wander about the party, leaving her to her own devices rather than making official introductions as Jane's employer.

"Speaking of which," Rose says, clapping her hands once. The momentary burst of delight on her face is somehow chilling. There's a deviousness to it that makes Jane want to edge a bit farther away. "You've passed the interview."

"Interview?" Jane echoes, her suspicions only growing.

"Yes, we've just now cleared the first stage of my selection process," Rose says. "Now that I know you can operate in the social spheres any investigator of mine must know how to traverse, we can move from petty spying on dear mister Strider, and tackle the far more pressing issue at hand. And conveniently enough, you've already met the man I need to have investigated."

"Let me guess," Jane says. "I spilled punch on your genuine target?"

"Not by any design of mine, but exactly, yes," Rose says. "Dion Droog, the chief financial officer for Crockercorp Industries. I need to know what devious undertakings he's embarking on at the behest of the company head. Are you interested in the job?"

"This isn't quite what I intended to look into, as a private investigator," Jane admits.

Rose nods, a passive agreement that doesn't disrupt the shrewdness of her pitch in the slightest. "Corporate espionage is a bit rich for many an investigator's blood. But there's something underhanded happening here, that much I am sure of, no matter what meager, insufficient proof I may have to hand at the present moment. I just need one good man – or woman – to find the proper evidence of misconduct."

It's not what Jane anticipated, setting up a detective agency and styling herself as a private investigator. She anticipated looking into cheating spouses, tracking down missing relatives, maybe once she made a bit of a name for herself, looking into backgrounds for official police investigations – off the record, of course. This is, if anything, far more exciting than helping on a criminal case. This is getting in on the ground floor, at moment zero, this is getting to investigate criminal activity before anyone with more clout has busted the thing wide open.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime for an aspiring sleuth.

"I'll do it," Jane says. "I'm just the person you want for the job."

"Perfect," Rose returns, smooth and triumphant. "That was just what I hoped you would say."

-

When Jane returns home after the Hollywood party there's a lilac envelope waiting for her, right on the welcome mat outside her front door. The hour is so late it might as well be early, and Jane is tired to the point of being unsteady on her feet. She's still absolutely certain she knows who's been leaving her mail.

There's no post mark or return address, just Jane's name looped across the front of the envelope. When she turns it over, after stepping inside the entranceway to her apartment and with only the hall light on to see by, the wax seal over the fold gleams wetly in the gloom. Jane can just make out the shape of a raven imprinted in the wax. She breaks the seal, and a scent like lavender and fresh rain wafts off the paper inside.

It's only as Jane is thinking that it's like a love note, with the elegantly curled script across the pages and the little splash of airy perfume, that it occurs to her that there's no way Rose could have written this letter at the party. It's absolutely impossible for Rose to have delivered it herself at all and gotten it to Jane's apartment before Jane arrived herself. The only way even a third party could have delivered it in time was if Rose wrote it before even speaking to Jane in the study.

Rose counted on her agreement from the start. She never doubted for a moment that Jane would pass her test.

Something about that causes Jane to bristle, puffing up in righteous indignation that this woman who couldn't begin to profess at knowing her might presume to predict her opinions and decisions. She reads the letter through anyway. At first it's spite, the heat of her anger having her scanning fast. But her reading is swiftly brought down to a more ponderous crawl, specific instructions requiring more attention to digest. It seems that Rose Lalonde certainly has an eye for details.

According to the letter, Rose has everything in hand, and Jane's visit to Crockercorp Industries' regional office will be speedily arranged. Jane need only await Rose's next message with the specific date and time.

If nothing else, working with Rose Lalonde is certainly proving to be unpredictable.

-

-


	2. Chapter 2

-

The lobby of the building is pristine and empty, and Jane feels badly out of place.

The Crockercorp California headquarters consists of a monolithic white building situated on LA's outskirts. From the outside, it's nothing but shining glass and unblemished white stone, the company logo situated high up on the east-facing wall in arresting red script. There's a huge parking lot pooled around its base, filled with cars from one side to the other, all of their paint jobs done in black or red or white. It's all very intimidating, as the taxi Jane called lets her out along the front walk.

But the inside, the inside is definitely worse. There's no receptionist, no sitting area, nothing personal at all. Just the wall of floor to ceiling glass windows on the side Jane came in from, and a bank of forbidding elevators with their impersonal and slickly metallic rows of doors off down the hall to her right. There is a front desk, done in white and chrome with the Crockercorp logo emblazoned on the front in red. No one sits behind it.

There aren't even plants off in corners of the room. Jane had thought ridiculous fake plants were a staple of every huge corporation's décor.

She isn't about to just wait around when there's nobody willing to acknowledge her presence. She has an appointment. It's all very rude, and more than that, it's an undeniable invitation for her to conduct the exact sort of investigation she came for. With no one watching her, she strides off down the hall toward the elevators, low white heels clacking audibly against the polished floors with how silent everything is.

Jane presses the elevator call button, and waits.

She can see herself reflected in the chrome of the elevator doors, her soft, round face creased with worry, despite the determined front she's putting on. She feels out of her depth, and she really might be, making an appointment to meet with the CFO of a huge corporation. She's put on makeup, painstakingly styled her hair so her short bob curls neatly around her face, composed herself into this picture of professionalism so she can feel better about buying admittance with someone else's name. Without Rose's intercession, she wouldn't be here.

The elevator doors slide noiselessly open, and Jane steps inside. There's a whole huge bank of buttons and she doesn't know which one to press, so she taps the one for the top floor. If Droog is as important as Rose makes him sound, that has to be the one she wants. The doors swish closed in the wake of her choice.

The inside of the elevator is mirrored on all sides, and Jane finds herself staring at the floor. It's preferable to looking at herself anywhere else she directs her eyes, thick thighs and chunky ankles and why did she decide to wear a dress, again? It was professional, of course, to dress like a lady in soft eggshell blue, with her arms bared all the way to the shoulders. It's the persona of the kind of woman who would represent Rose Lalonde. She's not soft and weak; it's a veneer of femininity over unwavering resolve. She squares her shoulders (much too wide for this kind of neckline, she tries not to tell herself), and stands firm as the elevator slows to a halt.

She steps into a hall that's cold and empty. There isn't any art on the walls, though past a stone's throw they turn to clear glass anyway, looking into lavish boardrooms that are completely empty. Jane wonders if that is normal. The office building is huge, and has so many cars outside, but as far as she can tell there might as well be no one inside it at all. She peers into each of the rooms she walks by, with their ergonomic chairs and slick glass-and-chrome tables, everything perfect and untouched.

She wonders if maybe the real work at Crockercorp goes on elsewhere, far away from the public eye.

She passes several unmarked doors beyond the boardrooms, the plaques on the walls beside them left mysteriously empty. At the end of the hall, she finds the first labeled plaque, inscribed with _Dion Droog, CFO._

After a moment to brace herself, Jane raps smartly on the door.

A not-unfamiliar deep voice bids her, after a pause long enough to make her sweat, " _Come inside._ "

Jane turns the handle, and steps into the office room. It's not as intimidating as she might have feared. In fact, the room is nearly empty, boasting only a few nondescript white filing cabinets and the white desk Droog sits behind, its construction looking far too flimsy even next to his narrow frame. He's dressed just as he was at the party, in flawless black business formal.

"Come sit down," he adds, after a moment, gesturing to the single chair left waiting before the desk.

Jane steps forward, smartly, and sweeps her skirt under her before dropping into the seat. Her attempt at gracefulness is undermined by the brief scrape of its legs against the tile floor, her weight enough to shift it from its established place. The chair seems just as flimsy as Droog's desk.

"Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Droog," Jane says.

"It is my job," he returns, and for a moment, she's left struggling to decide whether he's made a joke.

She can't say she's certain, even after her long moment of floundering. "My employer is interested in investing with Crockercorp," she says instead, pushing it aside. "While she has considerable capital with which to invest, we hoped for an opportunity to ensure that Crockercorp really is the company we'd like to enter into this sort of financial partnership with."

Jane doesn't mention Rose's name. She doesn't know by what means Rose has brokered this meeting, and any misstep could tip a hand that Jane is only able to see parts of. It's somehow thrilling, for all that it scares her.

"Of course," Droog says. "I am always willing to reassure potential investors of the advantages to partnering with Crockercorp."

His words are almost too clean, too crisp. Jane smothers the impulse in her head that declares him sinister. He's a business type; they all have that stiff air about them. (All save her father, a man of both stern professionalism and irreverent humor, but it's hardly the time for her to be thinking about that.)

"I believe we mentioned a five year projection?" Jane asks.

"We did," Droog agrees.

There is a computer on his desk, the slim monitor for which he turns to face in her direction. Rose cannot truly intend to invest, and Jane doesn't have the background to learn much from the figures and predictions he shows her. But she looks on attentively, asking what questions she thinks sound wise, and takes active note of how the data she's shown doesn't quite seem complete. She's no expert, never mind those painful years of a business degree she did happen to complete, but she doesn't consider herself to be a detective for nothing. She can spot when something is missing, and when something is amiss.

Even more curious is how little attention Droog pays to her while he's lecturing. It strikes her as rude at first, but she begins to wonder if it's more than just a personality flaw when she sees how often he looks to the side. It's as if a portion of his attention is constantly on something else. She would peg it as a nervous gesture, if not for the fact that he continues to seem perfectly – too perfectly – self-assured.

Something else is going on, something else that he's keeping watch on, though its familiar enough to him to not register as a matter for overt concern.

Jane thanks him for the information, asks him if he could perhaps send the projections and the graphs by email for her employer's further perusal? She gives one of her work addresses, not tied directly to her name or to Rose's. She's more interested in the fact that he agrees, than in looking at the data if and when he sends it to her. He's the continued picture of unconcern, not even registering as genuinely interested in whether Jane's employer gives his company money. It seems a strange way for a chief financial officer to be, unless he knows something she doesn't.

"Again, thank you," Jane says, standing up from her chair.

She puts her hand out for a shake. He stares down at it, his absent demeanor giving way to disgust for that brief moment, before he deigns to give her a cursory shake. His palm is very dry against hers and slightly rough, and he lets go almost too quickly to be polite.

"It was no problem," he replies.

Jane takes her leave. By her watch, their meeting took the better part of an hour, between the graphs and the spreadsheets, between dry explanations of financial projections and brief descriptions of upcoming company projects. It seems a longer stretch of time than someone of Droog's position should have been able to spare.

On the way back down, Jane impulsively jabs the button for one of the middle floors. Every conference room and office she pokes her nose into is just as empty as the boardrooms upstairs. She stops at the floor below it, and the floor below that, but each level is the same. She sees nothing but pristine, empty rooms, filled with glass and chrome and sterile white, and with the semi-frequent repetition of the bright red Crockercorp logo.

She thinks she catches motion, stepping back into the elevator from the second floor, but she's distracted by the buzz of her phone, the vibration loud enough to be clearly heard in the silence of the empty building. Jane takes it out to check her messages.

_"Please do me the favor of a meeting at the below listed address. From your present location, it should be a walk of perhaps fifteen minutes, which I imagine may be quite pleasant with today's weather. I'll be seeing you shortly. -R.L."_

After so many rooms and rooms of nothing, the words from a fellow breathing person are reassuring, right up until Jane remembers that she never did give Rose the number to her private cell.

-

The address, when Jane arrives outside its door, turns out to be a tiny coffee shop, tucked away in an otherwise impersonally industrial area of town. The door itself is a bright splash of color, pale new-leaf green against the surrounding red brick. Jane steps inside and spots Rose at a small table, in the corner nearest the front window.

She walks over, and takes the seat opposite.

Rose's fine blonde hair is tucked up under a flat-topped pageboy cap, and she has forgone the stark painting of her lips for more neutral coloring. Jane can't help but admire the subtle contouring to her face, and the deft hand that must have applied it. Rose looks like a dapper young soldier in her narrow-legged tweed suit, dressed up after his return from the war. Jane's finery from her meeting is more fifties chic; they've missed each other by a decade.

"Right on time," Rose says, smiling over at her.

Jane feels like she's missed Rose by endless miles more than that.

"Have a scone," Rose adds. "I took the liberty of ordering them for us while I was waiting."

Jane takes one of the scones off the plate Rose has politely nudged in her direction with just her two fingers, discreetly glancing around the cafe while she takes a small bite. It's a little dry, and could have been so much more, with a properly done glaze. Jane eats it anyway, welcoming the distraction more than the taste. There are other patrons in the cafe, grouped in ones and twos, and a barista behind the counter. The entire cafe appears so ordinary – hardly the most discreet setting for a meeting.

The mundanity of it only made it more ideal for a clandestine meeting.

"Tell me about your meeting with Dion," Rose prompts.

"Right down to brass tacks," Jane says, flustering a little more at the directness of it. She longs for codewords and fake names, for the familiar comforts from detective stories. But this is the real world, and those fripperies are foolish when it comes to getting anything done. "It went well, or it would have, if you were really trying to invest with the company. Mr. Droog was very patient in explaining the financial advantages of investment."

"But was he attentive?" Rose asks.

"He was a bit distracted," Jane admits. "In fact, he seemed quite a bit more concerned with the nothing going on off in the corner of the room, but I wasn't about to ask him what he was looking at. That hardly would have been discreet."

"That does sound curious," Rose says. "Don't you think?"

For a moment, Jane can't tell if it's an invitation. She's an investigator on the job, and it's only to be expected that Rose will want to hear her astute observations. She isn't entirely sure what Droog's distraction means though, and she would much rather not make an embarrassment of herself in front of someone as esteemed as Rose Lalonde, published author and admirable impersonator of a dignified young gentleman.

It feels, for a singular moment as Jane nibbles her scone, almost as if she is on a date.

"It's my opinion that he was acting like someone was watching him," Jane confides. "He seemed right concerned with a particular spot, as if there was a camera there. And then when I was downstairs, I thought I saw motion for a moment, but no one was there. I thought maybe someone was recording me."

Rose nods, thoughtfully, toying with the plate of scones on the table. "And did you see anything else strange? Missing, perhaps?"

Jane narrows her eyes a little, but agrees anyway. "All of the offices and conference rooms and cubicles, they were empty. I considered it might have just been the upstairs, that being the very top floor, but when I went down a level at a time it was like that everywhere. It was as if no one had come in to work at all."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Rose says. It makes Jane smile for a second, for all that she wants to be cross with Rose for her cryptic manner. "It's almost as if the esteemed head of the company has no need for the lowly worker in the rank and file."

Jane frowns, and now she is a little bit cross. She's getting the very distinct impression that Rose didn't need her to go in and investigate that building at all. It's seeming very much as if Rose has known what was going on there all along.

"Shucks buster," she breathes out. "What do you need me for at all, if you already know just how everything is?"

"Everyone needs an ally," Rose says. "There are worlds of difference between knowing something, and seeing something first-hand."

"I'm an ally, am I?" Jane asks. "I ought to increase my hourly rate, if this is the kind of ally I have. It seems like there's a lot you're not telling me, which is going to make it very hard for me to do my job!"

"Yes, I suppose that's true," Rose says.

Jane is so surprised to have Rose agreeing with her that the fact alone shocks her back into silence. Rose nods to herself, as if considering quite what she wants to say.

"The true aim of my investigatory efforts has been, from the start, to reveal the head of Crockercorp and the face behind the Betty Crocker name for the traitorous wretch that she is," Rose says. "It's simply the case that I require the aid of someone I can trust, and while I'd like to believe you are one such person, it may still be the case that this is yet to be seen."

"Of course you can trust me," Jane huffs. "You hired me, didn't you?"

"That I did," Rose agrees. "It's my belief that the woman behind the Betty Crocker name is an alien. My goal is to prove as much."

"You... Come again?" Jane says.

"An alien," Rose repeats. "That is to say, the woman in charge of Crockercorp is not entirely human. I don't believe she's a native of this planet at all, though her exact place of origin is beyond me. I couldn't tell you the full extent of her goals, either, but that doesn't mean I have to sit idle and watch her complete them."

"Rose," Jane says, voice a bit faint and speaking quite slowly. "Aliens aren't real. I do hope you know that."

"She's very real," Rose says, just as polite and conversational as always. "She may also be attempting a form of mind control through brand loyalty and aggressive marketing. This is all very real if you ask me."

Jane just shakes her head, trying to figure out the exact point at which their conversation ceased making any kind of sense. The eponymous Betty Crocker, an alien! It was simply ridiculous. Completely unthinkable. The fact that she had an entire corporate office empty of workers and lorded over by one robotic man who seemed to jump at shadows, however slowly, was not enough to support so outlandish a claim.

"I suppose this is another one of those things you know but don't have the proof to back up yet," Jane says accusingly.

"Precisely," Rose agrees, her curious little smile widening. "Now you're getting it."

"Hardly!" Jane exclaims. "How do you expect me to prove that a wealthy public figure is an alien? That seems more a job for a tabloid reporter than a private investigator."

"Far be it for me to dictate the means," Rose sniffs. "I was counting on your skill and expertise to inform your choices in how to go about some portions of this endeavor."

"Expertise, she says!" Jane cries, no longer speaking to Rose so much as expressing her helpless displeasure to the air. "Informed choices, she says! I believe the correct saying here would be _this is not my division._ And that's even without the issue of me being quite skeptical that there is anything to find, seeing as Betty Crocker cannot be an alien." 

"I did wish to believe in your abilities," Rose says. "And your open-mindedness. But if you don't have the investigatory skill to see it on your own and obtain the necessary proof, I suppose I will have to give you some evidence." 

"Please," Jane says, still a bit helplessly. "Do show me how Betty Crocker is an alien." 

"I will," Rose says, standing up from the table. "I advise that you keep an eye on your phone." 

She doesn't say anything else, simply strolls smartly out of the cafe. 

-

The first text message Jane gets, timestamped to the ungodly hour of 4:37am, is a link to a website that would be best deemed an alarmist conspiracy news hub. And that's if Jane is being generous. She's only just woken up but there's no question the source of the text, even with the unlisted number. The prim  _-R.L._ appended to the end of the message says everything Jane needs to know.

Dutifully, she loads the page and reads through its entire contents. Technicolor images splash between brisk little paragraphs of text, showing the elderly woman operating under the moniker "Betty Crocker" at business conferences and school board meetings, touting the wares of her company with a grandmotherly smile to the farthest reaches of her conceivable target audience. The press images are innocuous, the candid shots less so. 

Betty Crocker in a shady dance club. Betty Crocker meeting with men whose faces are grotesquely painted. Betty Crocker behind the scenes on a Food Network special. Betty Crocker with the Republican governor of California, the one who'd been in all the tabloids. Betty Crocker writing at a desk with ink so garishly pink as to arrest the eye in focal point. 

The pictures are more absurd than telling; without the text, Jane couldn't begin to guess what she is meant to learn. 

With the text, she hardly needs to read past the title line.  _Batterwitch Exposed: The Power of the Pastry in Controlling Both Public Opinion and Politics_ . It's ridiculous. There aren't words enough in the English language to convince Jane that one woman might have deduced the key to ruling a country from the shadows. Least of all with no tools greater than a few washed-up politicians, a television cooking channel, and a posse of juggalos. 

Jane reads through every other article on the website that talks about Crockercorp. 

She tries to text Rose back, just to say that she's perused the literature. Her message to the unlisted number comes back to her, delivery to the recipient failed permanently. 

-

The second text is a link to an article about the attempted takeover of a software and technology company whose founder and chief board member defaulted control to the trustees in absentia. The tone of the reporting is saccharine sweet, lamenting Crockercorp's failure to acquire the rival company as a momentary setback, the likes of which will be quickly corrected. Jane can't help but wonder what a baking conglomerate needs with an electronics company. 

Her phone buzzes just as she's finished reading. 

_"She has bigger plans than one might expect from the head of a baking empire. Isn't it curious that a woman in her position would want to diversify? -R.L."_

Jane doesn't even attempt to text Rose back. 

-

When Rose sends her an article about new developments in global climate change, Jane can't help but wonder if maybe the woman is lonely, and just wants to know someone else is reading the same segments of the news. 

-

Jane starts to notice the brand names of the things she buys and uses all the more. She owns Betty Crocker measuring cups and spoons, and a Betty Crocker corningware set. She still prefers to bake with Betty Crocker mix, even since she moved away from home. She tried to start baking from scratch, but it wasn't quite the same. She can make some things, but Betty Crocker cakes are simply a comfort staple. She's never been able to abandon them. 

She stops in the grocery aisles, holding a box of General Mills cereal in one hand and weighing the store brand with the other. She considers whether she really needs Quaker brand oatmeal, or whether Kraft's dubious cheese-like product is something she wants badly enough to put in her body. When she's home in her apartment, doing her finances or replying to work emails, she's taken to leaving the TV on in the background, to provide the comforting din of human voices she misses while living alone. She looks at the brands on boxes and bags and thinks about how many commercials she listens to in a day, even if she thinks she isn't really hearing them. 

She thinks about aggressive marketing, and wonders if perhaps some of it has become subliminal instead. 

The Jiff and the Kraft and the General Mills go back on the shelf, replaced with no-name, no-label products that Jane's pocketbook at least thanks her for buying. She should have learned to penny-pinch sooner, but her father never was frugal that way. Hard as she tries, she can't push herself to take the "super moist" confetti cake mix back out of her cart. 

Jane reads Rose's emails with Betty Crocker baked goods on her tongue, and only ends up feeling disproportionately ashamed. 

_"Have you begun to see the patterns in the baroness' actions? I feel I am loathe to offer up evidence compelling enough for so stubborn a skeptic to see the unearthly hand involved in steering Crockercorp's fate, but even an objective assessment of this woman's business practices should confirm that her actions are more than fishy. If I cannot convince you of her otherworldly origins, the least I can hope to have done at this juncture is to have established the vital importance of our intercession in her schemes._

_-R.L."_

Jane never did understand the media's fondness for terming Betty Crocker a baroness. It's all such phooey, sensationalism that Jane would not be surprised to hear Betty herself had orchestrated. Rose using the name makes her wonder if she might be wrong in that assumption. 

Or if Rose might be buying too far into the mystique of her own cause. 

_"I can't very well see patterns where there aren't any! You drive a hard bargain, and I might be convinced that Crockercorp's CEO uses practices that don't toe the line of ethics as closely as they ought. But whatever nefarious business goals she might have, those certainly don't make her an alien. I'm a bit disappointed! When you said you would have evidence I dared to hope it would be something dramatic._

_And what's this "our" you're talking about? You do like to assume me more capable of helping you than I'm quite sure I'm able._

_-Jane"_

She worries that she's buying too far into the mystique herself, with all of Rose's talk of allies, and banding together, and branding them as a "we." It's Rose's own branding technique, turning Jane and herself into a product with more insidious a hand than even Betty Crocker can manage. 

_"Her being an alien is hardly the primary concern. I admit that I'm especially invested in your coming to see eye to eye with me on that point, though whether that's now the result more of my unwavering belief or my personal pride, I wouldn't dare attempt to say. What's important is that she's changing our country in ways that matter, through means too clever for the masses to even take note._

_You do yourself a disservice. I think you're more than capable. If I didn't, I wouldn't have approached you in the first place. Which begs the question, do you now don your self-deprecation as a cloak worn in habit, or have you honed it into a blade to parry my advances in particular?_   
  
_-R.L."_

It's a question Jane herself doesn't have an answer to. 

_"I don't see why it has to be either. I am a very fair judge of my abilities! They lie in solving puzzles and working out problems. That makes me a fair hand at sleuthing if I do say so myself, so you can take this business about cloaks and swords and bury it, for all the good it's doing you._

_Besides, I still have a bit of trouble believing that a company head, even with all her money, is in a position strong enough to threaten anyone's way of life. Is there something you're still not telling me? It's a bit late to be keeping an ace up your sleeve!_  
  
 _-Jane"_

Rose does that, after all. She's a woman seen in relief, discovered more through the things she doesn't say and those facts she keeps in reserve than through the more obvious actions Jane is always at a loss to puzzle out. Riddles and mysteries are her specialty, and yet when it comes to people, she can't quite find the right clue.

It's why she keeps trying. She wants to understand, and if she digs long enough, perhaps even Rose can be figured out. 

_"It's still doing me a fair bit of good. Cloaks of all kinds can be a comfort, and far be it for me to so unkindly divest you of yours._

_My sleeves are quite bare of cards and secrets. I've emptied them thoroughly for your perusal, though perhaps I haven't yet cast them in just the right light. I truly believe we need to stop her, Jane. I may not be the only one toiling away to complete this task, but it's a near enough thing that both of our efforts so dearly count._

_-R.L."_

Jane can only refuse her so many times, when all of her best-loved heroes would instead form plans to save the day. 

-

Jane's dinner is rapidly cooling on the desk next to her, leftover mashed potatoes and chicken and green beans all spooned into a bowl because she can't be bothered to cook every night and can't be troubled to see to them being heated up separately. Her father might have words to say about that, but being a single young woman living on her own, with a demanding job that doesn't always serve to pay the bills, sometimes she can't concern herself with what her father would think. 

For the upteenth time, she thinks to herself that she misses him. 

It's a dreary thought, for a drearier day. Jane pulls her account books closer to herself, preferring to have her notations of what work was done for whom, and when, written neatly out by hand as opposed to being stored in some document on her computer and backed up to a server somewhere. It's comforting, and makes her occupation seem less like a childish dream, a foolish hope she should have put aside with her father's death instead of striking out on her own and consign the family money she was leaving behind. 

Beside her on the desk, her phone buzzes. She pulls it closer as well, on top of her books, and stares dimly at the brightly-lit screen. She still isn't rewarded with knowledge of the number the text is from. 

_"Turn on your TV to the channel five news. I believe there's something you'd best see. -R.L."_

Jane would like to dismiss it, but she knows what that "R.L." means. She hasn't heard from Rose in over a week, hasn't done any more investigation for her and has returned to other clients in the absence of billable hours from the enigmatic novelist. This is work, and it means Rose still has a job for her to do. 

Jane goes into the main living room of her tiny apartment, plopping down in her favorite squashy armchair with the bowl of her dinner in her lap, and reaches for the remote to turn on the TV. It's on the right channel already. On screen, she sees a bright young reporter talking about some latest celebrity award event, the fanfare of the red carpet carrying on behind her. She gives her lead-in, and the camera cuts away. 

Rose and Dave are standing together atop one of those temporarily-erected stages, its shoddy black-brown front briefly visible before the shot tightens in on just the two of them. Dave is speaking as Rose simply smiles a small, polite smile, her companion talking about imagery or theme or something else incomprehensible in his newest movie. To the sides of the screen, two black-suited men, security from the look of them, step into the frame. For a moment, as they step forward toward Rose and Dave, their outlines seem to shudder and go indistinct. 

Then blades flash in their hands with that momentary wink of light off metal being brought toward vulnerable throats, before something explodes even farther forward than the foreground. Debris rains down. Underneath the thunderous sound of the blast, people are screaming, and the picture shakes as if the camera itself is being badly jostled. For a moment, the frame cuts in on the pretty reporter from before, her face pale and shell-shocked. She tries to say something, but the picture has jumped back to the stage, flattened and in chaos.

Jane is still staring, but she's no longer registering what she sees. 

The knife at Rose's throat looked impossibly sharp, for the entire chilling second Jane could register seeing it. And those men... It was for only a moment, but for an entire unsettling heartbeat they'd seemed impossibly broad and menacing, their flat faces turned into inhuman masks, their arms bristling with spikes. 

The picture on the news channel has cut out entirely, the piercing whine of the broadcasting test tone dislodging all the horrifying snapshots free of Jane's mind's eye. She shakes her head, hard, as it settles in that  _someone just tried to kill Rose on television._ Someone tried to kill Rose. Rose Lalonde!

What does someone like Jane even begin to do about that?

She already has her phone in her hand, she realizes, staring down at it in despair. She needs to – call someone! It's absolute foolishness that Rose has never given her a real number, has just dropped little messages onto Jane whenever she pleased with no concern for whether Jane might need to do the same. But that's ridiculous, if Rose is injured – or, or dead – she can hardly call Rose herself. Who would pick up the phone? 

Who would... 

Jane hops up from her seat, throwing her phone onto her bed as she dashes into the other room. Her hands fly over her dresser, rooting through the odds and ends of paper scraps and pens and useless detritus until her fingers come up with one lone, solitary business card. She flips it over. There's a number scribbled on the back, just like she was promised. 

She's calling Terezi Pyrope before she can even question the decision. It must be a personal number, the one on the back of the card, because there was a different one printed properly on the front. She's beginning to wonder about that, even through the panic, but then the ringing in her ear gives way to the line picking up and all of Jane's focus narrows to the voice on the other end of the call. 

"Terezi?" she asks, voice tight with worry. 

"Jay!" the lawyer crows in instant recognition. "Or should I say Jane, this time? I can always sniff out a lie, Jane Crocker, but that introduction didn't seem off from the truth." 

"Yes, yes," Jane says, not caring about that. "You work for Rose Lalonde, don't you? She spoke as if you were friends. Something has happened to her, I need to, she... She told me to turn on the news..." 

Jane trails off, deflating as the time comes for her to properly explain her thoughts. What, exactly, does she expect Terezi to do? Terezi is a lawyer, even if she might have a direct line to Rose. Does Jane expect Terezi to sue whoever it was who made the attempt on Rose's life? 

Just what is Jane so worried for, anyway? 

"There's treachery afoot, is there?" Terezi says, like a dog sinking its teeth in. She sounds excited, for all that she speaks with a grim sense of purpose. 

"She said she was giving me evidence!" Jane laments. "I didn't expect to watch someone try to kill her!" 

There's a dull sort of thump, on Terezi's side, though Jane is hardly of a mind to worry about it. The pause after her protest is far too long and she's about to say something else, when a different voice cuts in with, "I believe this call may be better directed to me." 

"Rose!" Jane says, almost like its an accusation. 

"The very same," Rose jokes. "It's hard to tell, with Terezi translating, but it almost sounds as if you're concerned for my well-being. I'm quite touched." 

"I thought you might have died," Jane protests, voice gone momentarily weak. "I'm of half a mind to think you still might have! There was an explosion, someone must have set a bomb, that's absolute lunacy, I can't believe--"

"Jane," Rose cuts in. "I take it you are beginning to believe that something serious is afoot?" 

"Serious is putting it mildly, sweet goodness!" Jane exclaims. 

"Yes, I quite agree," Rose says. 

"Rose, you could have died," Jane says again. She knows she's expressed the sentiment already, but Rose simply doesn't seem to be getting it. "I can't believe you're alright, everything just collapsed, you were  _attacked._ Are you sure you're alright?" 

"I'm speaking to you now, aren't I?" Rose asks. 

"I want to come see you," Jane says. "Right now, missy!" 

"I thought you might say something like that," Rose says. "I'd advise that you look outside your door." 

As Jane goes to peer through the window, she hears the click of the line going dead. For an entire moment she wants to scream at the audacity of Rose Lalonde, but then she's seeing the limo waiting outside her front drive, and its all she can do to stare. 

-

-


	3. Chapter 3

-

Rose's driver steps out of the car in order to usher her inside, his crisp, black chauffeur's uniform stretching taut across broad shoulders as he leans down to pull open her door. Two heavy falls of dark hair swing forward to curtain his face when he does, and Jane can't help thinking that he's awfully handsome for a limousine driver, even with the healed break in his prominent nose, and with the way he doesn't smile, even when she tries to thank him for the help.

Jane slides onto the bench seat behind the driver's, and feels very much not at home. 

She might have liked to talk to the driver, in hopes that his company and conversation might brace her nerves. He proves not to be a talkative sort, and with how tightly Jane can see him gripping the wheel through the partition, she thinks it best not to try his nerves while he's behind the wheel. It leaves her an awful lot of time to think. 

The better part of an hour is far longer than Jane requires to feel foolish about rushing out of the house in only her pajamas. She can only berate herself over that poor exercise of judgment for so long before she's questioning exactly where Rose's driver is taking her. If it were anyone else, she might have guessed a hospital, but that hardly seems fitting for someone with Rose's convoluted sense of humor. More than that, when she called Terezi right after that disaster on the red carpet, Rose was there immediately to take the phone.

Does Rose simply invite her lawyer to every social event she happens to attend, or is something larger afoot?

Jane worries at the problem, her impulses as a detective urging her to pick it apart until she can figure out the mystery, though her concentration is frequently broken by spikes of worry. Rose might be acting strangely, but Rose always acts strangely, it's been her modus operandi since the moment Jane met her. If anything, strange behavior in the face of an attack only manages to seem entirely normal, a fact that only has Jane worrying more that something terrible truly has happened to Rose. 

When they pull up to a stately manor, well outside the city and hardly next door to the red carpet event just a few short hours before, Jane has no eyes for the elegant tree-lined drive or stately turn of the century architecture. She's out the door to the limo before the driver can even come around the car, let alone open it for her. The broad steps up to the door are no match for her long, purposeful strides. 

Mindful of the manners her father took great care to impress on her, though, she stops to knock smartly on the door with the ornate hanging knocker rather than simply barging inside. 

It's a long moment before anyone comes to the door, which has her huffing slightly in impatience. When it's at last pulled inward, it's Terezi's clever, sharp-featured face looking out at her, from behind those ridiculous cat-eye glasses. All teeth at the party when Jane met her, Terezi doesn't seem to be smiling now. 

"Come in," she says, pulling the door wider to allow Jane inside. 

Jane steps past the other woman, doing her best to squash down the urgency and worry that's only rising all the higher at the sober greeting she's been faced with. She can't begin to explain the source of her concern. Rose is her employer – she isn't even certain Rose qualifies as a friend – she certainly shouldn't be someone Jane sheds tears over so easily. She needs to see that Rose is well all the same. 

"Is she... Is she alright?" Jane asks, too aware that it's such a foolish question. 

"She's in her room," Terezi says. She's grim, not making jokes about it. 

Jane tips her chin up, asks, "Where is that?" 

"It's the last room on the right," Terezi says, pointing up the stairs toward the second floor. "Although I wouldn't--"

Jane marches off up the stairs without bothering to hear what she oughtn't do. 

She keeps herself from taking them two at a time, but her steps are quick and without hesitation, swift feet carrying her past more doors than she would have expected to count on one hall in any other place. It's no question which one is the door, and she throws it open, shoving her nose into the bedroom with her nerves braced for seeing Rose laid up in the bed covered in white bandages, or with visible gruesome injuries. 

Rose is stood in the center of the room, her back to Jane, one pale hand held by her cheek. She turns, and places her free hand over the bottom of her phone. Jane thinks that what she whispers into it must have been "I've got to go." Jane isn't especially skilled at reading lips. 

"Rose!" she exclaims. 

Jane can't see any damage on her. Rose is pristine and whole, if looking a bit harried, in the exact same clinging dress she'd worn for the interview on TV. Its edges look worried, the fabric distressed, but Rose herself appears to have earned not a scratch. Jane wants to shake her. Jane wants to hug her. 

She's across the room in seconds after settling on the latter, though her arms close so tightly and her own body trembles so steadily with sheer relief that she might as well have been shaking Rose after all. Reaction makes Jane shudder and she clutches Rose like a lifeline. 

"I thought something terrible had happened to you!" She's speaking too loudly right by Rose's ear and that's simply too bad, the force coming from relief or rage, she isn't sure which. She can still see the makeshift stadium coming down all around Rose. She can still see those two brutes of men closing in behind Rose and behind Dave. "I can't believe you made me watch that!"

She releases Rose just enough to push her back to arm's length, her fingers tight around Rose's shoulders. Rose's lips are twitching slightly, like she has something she wants to say, or maybe like she's trying not to smile. Jane cannot believe her at all. 

"You told me to turn on my TV knowing that was going to happen," she accuses, voice going low with the dawning certainty of it. "You knew someone was going to attack you on the red carpet, and you walked right into it anyway, but not before telling me to tune in." 

"That's putting it rather harshly," Rose comments.

This time, Jane does shake her. 

"That is the stupidest gosh darn thing I have ever fucking heard," she says, spitting the curse like it's a bullet. 

"You did tell me that I should have shown you something more dramatic," Rose reminds her. "I was simply living up to your request. In the parlance of a certain roguish hero, as you wish, miss Crocker."

Jane presses her lips together, and screams through them. Looking at Rose's lovely face, made no less pretty for the little lines around her mouth, her eyes, and made completely unapologetic by the amused quirk to her lips, is making Jane feel absolutely crazy. She clamps her arms around Rose to stave off shaking her again, squeezing her with unabated ferociousness. Rose feels warm and whole and solid inside the circle of Jane's arms, and despite every shred of stoic determination Jane has ever prided herself on being made of, she powerfully wants to cry. 

"You're a terror," she says, voice gone soft and grim. 

"I am sorry for worrying you," Rose murmurs back. 

It's the point when Jane notices that Rose's arms have slipped around her shoulders in reciprocation. Rose's narrow hands are stroking her back, and when Jane fully realizes that Rose is the one giving her comfort after being attacked, she wants to laugh until that makes her cry instead. 

"God, but I'm being stupid," she says, letting go of Rose properly. 

"Hardly," Rose replies. "I do sometimes lose sight of the larger picture when the goal becomes all that I see. It's a bit of a personal weakness, and those are the times when I need to be reined in." 

Rose strokes her fingers along the line of Jane's jaw and up to curl against the side of her neck, presses her lips softly to the arch of Jane's cheek. Jane can't help wondering inanely whether Rose's lipstick will have smudged off against her skin. It still looks impeccable on Rose's smiling mouth when she again leans away. 

"You're a hard woman to take the reins from," Jane says, aiming for wry. 

Rose smiles just a little bit wider, and Jane can't help herself in feeling proud. Rose is a hard woman to impress, too. Even the littlest success there feels like a victory. 

"Nevertheless, I do invite you to try," Rose suggests. 

Relief swells in Jane again, that Rose is fine, and making jokes, and looking lovely as a maiden out of some myth for all that she didn't need Jane to rush in and save her from a disaster after the fact. Jane washes against her anyway, cupping her palms against Rose's cheeks and kissing the clever curves of her lips. It's a challenge, just like Rose always is, and Jane is so happy to seize it. 

Rose doesn't give up the reins easily, her mouth moving deftly enough to belie any surprise, though there's nothing forceful about her. She's quiet and sure, just as self-possessed in kissing as she is with her opinions. Jane can meet that, willing to fight for the lead in something as straightforward as a kiss, even when leadership has begun to make her so gun-shy. 

She pulls away first, in a dimly horrified moment of _it can't possibly be alright to kiss one's boss!_

"That's one approach to dealing with shock," Rose says.

It takes Jane too many additional scandalized moments to realize it's a joke. 

"Who thinks it's alright to walk right up to a death threat and stare it in the face?" Jane shoots back. She pretends it wasn't on a delay. "I really am glad you're okay." 

"I'll be glad when things like this stop happening," Rose says.

"This isn't the first time someone's tried to kill you?" Jane splutters, caught off guard all over again. 

"It's a bit of a professional hazard," Rose says dryly. "My opposition of the Batterwitch has long since become knowledge too common to preserve my anonymity. She knows I disapprove of her tactics, and every so often, she has words to say about it." 

Jane shakes her head, unable to even be skeptical of the things Rose tells her any longer. The fact that Rose has had numerous assassination attempts targeted at her easily becomes just a matter of course. 

"That's why I do need new allies," Rose reminds her. "If you refuse to help me even now, the rejection may just break my fragile heart." 

Jane laughs, however shakily, scrutinizing Rose's face for some sign that it's a joke. But the wry little twist of a smile is her usual one, the slight arch to her brows simply questioning, not mocking. She still isn't entirely sure what Rose means. 

"If I don't help you, next time you might really get yourself killed!" Jane says. 

"I'd attempt not to," Rose demurs. "Though I suppose if we're not careful, it's only a matter of time." 

"That's not my idea of a funny joke," Jane huffs. 

"My apologies," Rose says, somberly enough that Jane almost believes her. "I will endeavor with the utmost of determination not to meet some grisly end before my time comes nigh. Which I expect will be much farther off, with someone on the inside to help champion the cause."

"On the inside," Jane repeats, her skepticism again spiking up. 

"It is true that you are one of the few untainted people who could slip right into Betty Crocker's operation," Rose says. "Don't tell me it isn't true." 

For a moment, Jane's enthusiasm for an anti-Crockercorp plan of attack flags. She's reluctant to believe that Rose's efforts all this time have simply hinged upon the power of her name. But it's a mantle she constantly wears, present around her shoulders at every introduction and every new meeting. It's not impossible that Rose would choose her for her background, rather than her skills. 

"It's true," Jane says. She's curt even as she tries not to be, her hackles visibly going up with the way her shoulders tense and her jaw tightens. "But that doesn't mean I want to do it." 

Rose pauses, her lips pressing together slightly and her entire body going placid-lake still. Frozen though she is, Jane can almost see the steady rotations of her mind's inner workings. Though Rose's face is composed, there's no question that she's thinking quickly underneath her calm surface. 

"I wasn't meaning to issue an ultimatum," Rose says. "Now, as always, what I'm asking of you is meant as a choice."

Jane never knows quite how far to trust Rose, when there are deeper levels below every thing that she says, and when there is always the possibility she's still keeping something in reserve. But more than seeing Rose groping for the fix in the face of what looked like a blunder, Jane saw proof that this was one thing Rose hadn't planned from the start. If it was only about Jane's name, Rose would have been more prepared to smooth the way for the end goal of Jane-as-symbol. It's how Jane knows she's more than a talisman. 

"In that case," Jane says, voice a bit shaky as she recovers, "it's a choice I'm willing to make." 

Rose smiles at her, and though it's a small thing, that particular pleased curve of lips is everything Jane wants to see. The rest of her shakes smooth away, and she realizes, she really can do this. 

"I can do this," she adds, voicing it aloud. 

"That's what I like to hear," Rose says. 

This time, Jane smiles back, wide enough to really show off her teeth. Maybe Betty Crocker is an alien. Jane doesn't think so, but she doesn't really care. The woman is a menace, and Jane is finally going to do something to take her down. She's done reading and watching and waiting to be brought up to speed. 

Rose has let her off the handler leash and she's ready to make her heroes proud.

-

Jane braces herself, and steps into the parlor. 

Across the room, the woman seated on the low chaise lounge sets her teacup down on a dainty coaster, and lifts her eyes toward Jane. There's no greeting offered, just a politely expectant smile plastered across a gracefully aged face. Jane has to order herself not to shrink away like a scolded child even from that lukewarm welcome. 

She's brought herself all the way to here. She can do this. She's survived the lengthy drive from California up to Washington state, shoulders squared for the walk across the Crocker estate's neatly manicured lawns to the house itself. Rose's connections and money cannot help her now, but this doesn't have to be the prodigal child returned to home. Jane is an adult now, and what she's coming to claim was always meant to be hers. 

"I've been thinking," Jane says, no preamble. "And I might like to take up the family trade after all." 

The woman on the lounge only purses her lips, withholding her reply. Jane has to remind herself that she's not six years old, and these sorts of tactics will not work on her. Her great grandmother lifts her cup again, sipping leisurely from her tea. 

"What exactly brought that decision on?" she asks, at length. 

Jane doesn't want to do it. She remembers when her poppop died, and her father started to distance himself from his grandmother. Jane hadn't understood at the time, but he'd simply said there were some yardsticks you didn't want to be always measuring yourself against. Jane understands now; it's a blow to her pride even to pretend that she's failed. 

"It turns out being a private investigator is more than just the littlest bit taxing," Jane says. "Maybe it really isn't the fun and games I thought it would be." 

Her great grandmother smiles, slow and gratified. "Gramma knows best." 

"Yes, I suppose she does," Jane says. 

She isn't sure if that's all. She feels ashamed, agreeing that her dreams were foolish, but has the renowned Betty Crocker really taken her back as company heir? Sitting prim on the couch, in her bright red gingham dress with her legs folded so neatly to one side, the woman looks like a queen. She lords over the lovely little parlor, with its cream furniture and pale walls and muted décor that Jane knows her great grandmother actually hates, like her very purpose is to make Jane feel small. Is that all? Is her humbling the sole requirement to come back? 

"I'll make a proper businesswoman out of you yet," Betty says. 

She smiles, and for a momentary flash, Jane swears she sees fangs instead of her great grandmother's oft-bleached pearly whites. The woman is intimidating enough, without Jane imagining a mouthful of shark teeth on her. She shakes it off. 

"I'll make sure to be a quick study," Jane agrees. 

Her eyes twitch again, and for the space of only a moment, her great grandmother's short, snowy hair blinks to black and full. In the next moment the illusion is gone. 

"I'm living in California now," Jane adds. "I have an apartment there."

"That won't be any matter for concern at all," Betty says, shrugging it off with the gentle lift of one shoulder. Her arm looks wrong, as it settles back down. "We do have the California offices." 

Jane wants to say she knows, that she's been there, that she's met Dion Droog and seen how sterile and unused that building looks. She doesn't; she's sure her great grandmother already knows she's been. 

"Those are much more convenient to me," Jane agrees. "It would be such a bother to move." 

It all feels so polite, so proper. And yet Jane remains on edge, her skin prickling with goosebumps, the feeling in the air like that of a breeze before an electrical storm. She could write it off as the old familial fear, as familiar intimidation by the woman who ran the first half-dozen years of her life. Even after her poppop died, Betty Crocker loomed in the background of her reality, dictating from afar that Jane attend the right school, meet the right people, dance like a proper young lady at the right parties. 

She hadn't cried, not right when her father died. She'd taken her things and she'd moved out, seizing on the opportunity to put distance between herself and a life she wasn't interested in living. 

Now she's stepping into it willingly. She'll show her great grandmother that she has the pluck for anything asked of her, will rule those icy offices with Droog if that's what's required of her. Whatever it takes to get into the files Rose needs and to redirect a company growing too big for its britches, she'll do. 

"I'll make sure you work," Betty says, suddenly businesslike. She sits up on the couch, claps her hands together. "The baking business isn't fun and games, it's long hours and hard work, not to mention having to be a leader for an entire company." 

There's a soft fizz of static crackle, and for an entire heartbeat, the air around Betty Crocker shivers like an old television going in and out of focus. Her determined smile becomes a lurid magenta smirk, stuffed with needle-sharp fangs. Wicked horns curl over a full head of black hair that hangs to her waist, all of her skin dolphin-hide gray and her eyes the exact shade of fresh-cut orchids. She's arresting in her inhuman splendor, completely unfamiliar, alien. 

She's just as Rose always insisted. 

"O-Of course," Jane manages to mumble, stumbling even after her great grandmother's face snaps back to the soft, lined thing she's used to from her childhood. 

"I have some calls to make," Betty says. "One's board won't simply take a new member without a bit of internal politics. You'll stay for lunch?" 

Jane can't find the words to politely refuse. 

-

When Jane tells Rose about her hellish lunch later, Rose only crows the littlest bit over Jane admitting she was right all along. Jane lets her have her moment about Betty Crocker being an alien, but Rose only crows all the more gleefully when she catches Jane slipping up and referring to her as the "Batterwitch."

-

-


End file.
